the wandering two

Thanks for all the info guys, one more question.  If any of you booked as a Voyagers club departure is the $€50 pp on board credit actually £50 given the currency onboard or is it pro rata? 

1 hour ago, Stu UK said:

We bought the upgrade prior to departure as that way you do not pay the onboard service charge. 

Our planner shows £13 per day to upgrade,  I'm guessing £15 onboard as that's the difference between the prices on the drink package thread on the main MSC board. 

Hi Stu,

Thanks for posting, not sailing until August but can't wait. Re the Plus drinks add on, are you billed onboard or when you add it to your booking?

We have onboard credit we'd ideally use to pay for some of the difference. 

I just posted on the MSC board so thought I'd cover here too.

Anyone thinking of using Cover For You can go through Top Cash Back for 10% back.

2 hours ago, monsterl said:

My surcharge from 4n-Divina 19.-23Dec (booked in I2/Inside Fantastica, 3 Pax) to 7n-Grandiosa (with complimentary upgrade to B2/Balcony Fantastica): 488€ or 162,66€ per person - 200€ OBC included 🙂

 

I think this is a fair deal for a christmas cruise...

 

 

Confused, in post #5 you quote the surcharge as €2000?

Did I miss something in the detail?

16 hours ago, luv2kroooz said:

All you have to do is read the terms of the contract NCL wrote, "Once a CND is applied to a reservation, it is subject to the same cancellation policy, rules and regulations as any other deposit which can be found on your reservation confirmation.".

 

So, if you're regular deposit is subject to FCC based on peace of mind, the CND converts to Peace of Mind. It doesn't just vanish...plus, this just makes good common sense. When you bought cruise next, you agreed to book and sail. So, you've upheld your end of the deal. Problem is, NCL voluntarily cancelled in you.

 

They love to change the terms and conditions to make it fit whatever financial result they want to achieve. But they can't. They are stuck with the contract they wrote.

As luv2kroooz has said once a  CND has been applied it should be treated as any other deposit. In that case did you get the face value of the now expired  cert built into your FCC? 

For us price was the deciding  factor.

Booked Jade for South Africa January '22 in mid May £859, price now £1299! 

RCL have more attractive policies for UK customers, get your deposit back, admittedly as a FCC, for cruises up to April '22. 

As an aside, never got a receipt for any drink. Didn't have to swipe our cards in the dining room at any time. I assume our package was "in the system" so the waiters already knew what we were entitled to. All food ordering done by them on palm type devices, all very slick. 

Hi, As alicat has mentioned, the bar menu highlights the drinks availability by package. We had the brindiamo package, your wine selection will be the same, as the menu says, wine by the glass.  In the main dining room there was a choice of one red & one white, constantly rotating between Chardonnay, Vermentino, Pinot Grigio(I think), Merlot, Cabernet & Nero d’avola. 

Some were better than others, you may get a better choice in the buffet. There are serving stations at the end of the buffet lines as well as some free standing ones serving wine & Heineken (the only beer included). 

We found that one station may have say a Cabernet, move along and the next a Merlot, so shop around when you get to know what you like. 

Thanks G.M.T, we guessed that's what they meant, but there was no key on the menu to indicate as such. The snow flake logo was for ingredients previously frozen. 

11 hours ago, Plan B said:

Thank you for the very detailed review.

 

I wonder if anyone can help?  We are booked on our first Costa cruise next April and having seen the fabulous lunch and dinner menu's in this review, I would like to know if these are the standard throughout the ship or is it because the OP was in a suite with all the extra perks?  Also, the breakfast in cabin menu - will this still be the same?    Thanks for any help

 

Just back from Favolosa, hopefully I can attach a couple of MDR menus, food was fantastic, by the way. 

In case you need more info on Marseille, check out Tom's port guides, a quick Google will find them.

Hi, I've recently received confirmation of shareholder obc, the small print states it can't be exchanged for cash, or used for casino charges or service charges.

Thank for all the info guys, really looking forward to our upcoming Costa trip. 

We're well used to the foibles of other lines, inc MSC, this board has been invaluable in answering our Costa specific questions.

There is so little info online, it's probably as good as we're going to get. 

We have our first Costa cruise coming up in September, so this has been the sort of thing I've been searching for too.

Scroll back to page four, Post "what drinks are included" by ClaudiaYVR

I was wondering the same, first Costa cruise this September. 

I've been browsing the list posted by greg2014 looking at the differences between brindiamo & piu gusto. As an example I can get the components of a negroni on the brindiamo package but will they serve me one? 

We're at the stage of looking for new to us ports too. Be it Caribbean or Mediterranean you can only go so far in say 7 days.

Recently booked our first Costa sailing for Sept, ten nights out of Savona, the length of the cruise means we get Cadiz & two days in Lisbon amongst some of the more regular Med ports, great price too, like some of the prices MSC used to have! 

We've found that the bar staff can be hit or miss on any line. Our most recent sailing was on MSC Lirica & most mixed drinks were good, other than the occasional bad one from the pool bars. We found that the two bar tenders in the Lord Nelson Pub (Dev & Nitin) went above and beyond in mixing off menu drinks once they got to know our tastes. 

We too had the old package & on a 20 night sailing, made good use of it! 

CF, same thing happened to us when we tried to do web check in for our Lirica sailing in March. The site wanted us to update our profiles but wouldn't let us input anything,  got our travel agent to do it.

Speaking of Voyagers Club,  we did Status Match in January. It had been over four years since our last MSC cruise, my wife's status had disappeared & mine had Welcome status ( although still with the correct amount of points).

We were matched to black, she was issued a new VC number, mine stayed the same. Fast forward to now & she was credited points for the Lirica sailing, I wasn't, so chasing that one now! 

Hi again 

We were on deck 9, inside cabin 9101, never had any noise problems. 

The crew started to set out deck chairs at around 6/6.30am.

Does anyone know if the spray park section of the ship is new after the lengthening? And if so are the cabins any more modern? There was nothing wrong with ours other than the shower space being very small. 

Hi,

Re children, not many & any that were on board were unobtrusive. 

We don't do any of the spas on ships. Would normally use the gym, but there was enough walking space on deck for our daily walk, so didn't even see what was in there. I'm sure someone else with more comprehensive MSC info may chip in at this point.

Our ports differ a little from next year's itinerary. Unless there was a must see location we just wandered around the towns. The ones that we visited........

Muscat

The ship docks right in town, it's an easy walk along the Corniche & a double back through the souk. Wifi available in the duty free shop in port, €3 For 2 hours, if memory serves.

Eilat 

Ships tour to Dead Sea & Masada fort. Although the latter was cancelled due to flash floods earlier in the day that closed the main road. We received a 30% refund onto our onboard account. 

One peculiarity of MSC is that any positive balance left at the end of the cruise has to be collected from guest services in cash,  most would just refund onto a credit card. I suppose at least you know you're got it back there & then.

Aqaba

Petra, the highlight of the trip. Given the distance from Aqaba port we went with the security of not missing the ship & went with an MSC tour.

Limassol

Very new looking cruise terminal, a couple of miles from Limassol town. There is a local bus stop (route 30) just outside the terminal building €1.50 each way into town.

Piraeus

Would have taken the metro into Athens, had we been able to dock.  Rough seas & high winds routed us to Corfu instead.

Katakolon

Hadn't decided if we wanted to go to Olympia,  there isn't a lot left to see.

On exiting the port there is the usual gaggle of taxi drivers  as well as private coach companies offering transfers there. At €8 it was too good to pass up. On arrival the options were to either pay the entrance fee if you want a close up look at the site & museum or stay with our guide for a short walk to get an overview.

We walked with our guide which took around 30 mins & went for a wander into the town for lunch. We were back in Katakolon in good enough time for a wander around the shops there also.

Split

Another easy wander around the town (Diotlechians palace is the historic core of Split), not far from the cruise port, unless you want to go further afield. 

Feel free to ask any other questions.

M

Hi,

My wife & I have recently returned from Lirica's sailing & had a great time. 

This was our fifth MSC cruise, the last one being five years ago on Sinfonia, another repo, Capetown to Genoa.

Like you we picked on the strength of the itinerary. During sea days we spent most of our time on deck, we had an inside cabin. Chair hogs were rife, as you're travelling solo that may not be such an issue, as you'll be able to get one somewhere. 

If you prefer indoors there were many lounges, the Blue Club disco was predominantly used at night only & with a wraparound aft view on deck 12 it's ideal to retire to with a book.

Food, we reckoned, was much improved over our last sailing. On most sea days there was a themed lunch special set up in the semi outdoor La Pergola area as well as the buffet & MDR. We heard from some others that the service in the MDR for breakfast & lunch was a little haphazard, but we prefer the buffet for those times, so can't comment.

We had the early sitting in the evening, 6.30, as second at 9.00 was way too late. The menus were certainly more European, think pasta, fish, risotto etc. Failing that there was an always available menu containing things like grilled chicken,  fish & palliard steak,  which was certainly a hit with one of our table mates, who seemed to live on steak & chips (fries) for three weeks! 

Announcements were kept to a minimum, so the multiple languages weren't an intrusion. 

Smoking was more prevalent than other cruises we have been on especially in the Lord Nelson pub on deck 5. It was half & half smoking/non smoking which made no sense as the smoke drifted through the whole room & could be smelt out in the neighbouring areas to a lesser degree. 

Ports of call, other than Aqaba & Eilat (ships tours Petra & Dead Sea) we did our own thing. 

Overall we had a great experience & wouldn't hesitate to sail with MSC in the future. The comments from others either in conversation or overheard ranged from a couple who regularly cruise on Azamara who loved it & another who was telling every official he could find as we disembarked that it was the worst cruise he had been on! 

I don't want to ramble on or turn this into a blow by blow review, but feel free to ask any questions. 

Regards

Mark & Heather

Great itinerary on a lovely ship, but that price!

Look outside the box folks, other cruise lines do similar trips, notably MSC. They have repos to Dubai & Durban, we booked Lirica next March ,20 nights,fantastica inside with drinks for about half the price.

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Hi Bea

Thanks for the reply. When I login to Voyager's my points expire 19th July '18, supposedly. A totally random date given our last sailing date.

Typical cruise line IT strikes again.

I'll keep an eye on our VC points, we are moving up a tier with Royal in November, I'll try status match then.

Regards

M&H

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